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If you are approaching or have passed your "due date" - that 40 week point in your pregnancy you are given a date for early on in your pregnancy, it is almost certain you will hear certain words with increasing frequency, like "overdue", "induction", "prostaglandin" (or "Cervadil"), "Pitocin", and others.

If this describes your situation or that of someone you know, I'd love to share part of a paragraph from a book I'm currently reading:

" A baby is considered 'term,' or mature, if it is born between 38 and 42 weeks gestation. The due date is estimated as 280 days -40 weeks- from the first day of the woman's last menstrual period and also by ultrasound. Forty weeks is the median of the normal range, explains Philip Hall, MD, professor and director of maternal-fetal medicine at St. Boniface General Hospital in Winnipeg, Manitoba. 'People seem to have thought for a long time that 40 weeks is some magic number, he says. Rather, it is just a midpoint...'Two standard deviations is within the normal range...and that's 13 days on either side.' Thus, a due date would be expressed more accurately as a 'due month.' "

-- From a very interesting read: "Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care" by Jennifer Block (available through our local library!)

If you are interested in learning more about due dates and the current evidence regarding going past due dates for yourself or someone you know (especially as the evidence applies to inductions), click below to be taken to a thorough and well-researched article at Evidence Based Birth all about due dates:Evidence Based Birth: The Evidence on Due Dates

Do you have any questions for me?

“I do not care what kind of birth you have…a homebirth, a scheduled caesarean, epidural hospital birth, or if you birth alone in the woods next to baby deer. I care that you had options, that you were supported in your choices, and that you were respected.”--January Harshe